Service Catalog overviewSummary The Service Catalog contains a collection of products that can be ordered. It is an end-user-facing view of the available service and product offerings provided by departments within the organization. It is implemented through a database listing all the business services offered, allowing users to browse or search offerings, and request them in the same manner as an online shopping experience. Main objectives Provide a simple interface to the non-technical userKeep a check on which items are being ordered by employeesDefine a proper fulfilment process at the backendProvide a mobile experience for portals Service catalog requestContains one or more catalog request items. Request Fulfilment lifecycle Service requests move through a process that includes request submission, approval or pre-approval and fulfilment and closure.ServiceNow sends notifications to all stakeholders. Multiple ways of creating a request. Service catalog creation All requests for goods and services are structured in a similar way.The request is generated when a user checks out their requested items, Request is identified by unique REQ number. Approval Notify approvers of the request.Approve or Reject submittal.The second stage of the submittal is to get the approval on the requestor request item if required.once it gets the approval the request or request item ready for task creation and assignment.Many organizations rely on the approval process to make sure that all the requests should be valid and fit an organization's budget. Until the approval request on the request(REQ) approve, no tasks or no approval for request item will be generated. Once the associated REQ/RITM approved, the workflow will continue and create the tasks. If the approval will be rejected, the execution of the workflow will be canceled.As per the above diagram, if one of the request items canceled or approved rejected, the request will be continued with the existing approved request item and will create the tasks. Request fulfilment Approval activities Locate tasksPerform task workUpdate task records Catalog tasks are used to fulfill the requests. catalog tasks can be viewed or edited from the request items.When catalog tasks are created, they should be assigned to groups.members of the group will be notified that a new task has placed in their queue.The fulfiller should include the work note and state to be changed to complete once they complete the activity on the catalog task. Closure Closed completeClosed incompleteClosed rejected or Closed canceled Activities Close all tasksRequested items closed automaticallyThe request closed automatically If the task will be closed with the state close skipped, the requested item will also be close skipped. Request item will be closed with the state "closed Incomplete "if one or more tasks will be closed with the state "Close Incomplete". Request fulfilment architecture - Data structures Primary tables associated with service catalog definitions Catalog (sc_catalog)Category (sc_category)Catalog item (sc_cat_item)Order guide (sc_cat_item_guide) Primary tables associated with managing open requests Request (sc_request)Request item (sc_req_item)Catalog task (sc_task) Catalog item configuration Configuration of the service catalog and request fulfilment does not directly follow the request fulfilment life cycle. Once the category and other functionalities like workflows will be created, all those included in the maintain item creation: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=t_DefineACatalogItem.html&version=latest Create category Follow the below documentation for the creation of new service catalog categories: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=t_CreateACategory.html&version=latest Create a service catalog variable The creation of service catalog variables allows to gather and organize information from users ordering a catalog item, for example, to ask users which options they want for the item:https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=t_CreateAVariableForACatalogItem.html&version=latest Create a variable set and add it to an item Create a set of variables and add them to multiple catalog items and order guides for reuse: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=t_CreateAVariableSet.html&version=latest Create catalog client scripts Client-side scripts can add dynamic effects and validation to forms. Scripts can apply to service catalog items or variable sets, allowing administrators to use the same functionality that is available on other forms: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=c_CatalogClientScriptCreation.html&version=latest Service catalog UI Policy Catalog UI policies control the behavior of catalog item forms when presented to your users. Catalog UI policies can be applied to a catalog item or a variable set: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=c_ServiceCatalogUIPolicy.html&version=latest Cart layout defaults Configure cart layout records to define functionality for widgets or screens in the shopping cart.Go to service catalog ->Catalog definition ->Maintain cart layouts and set the defaults for all the items.Set default for all the items hence it will minimize the jelly scripts code execution in widgets. Additional configuration properties Service catalog > Administration > Properties will show the list of system properties to control the behavior of the service catalogs: